Govt urged to push against death penalty

The Australian government should follow up the Bali state executions by leading an international campaign against the death penalty…and reining in the AFP, CLA and others say.

CLA Media Release

Govt should campaign against death penalty

Civil Liberties Australia is calling on the Australian Government to take precise, concentrated action to eliminate the death penalty worldwide.

Australia should adopt a leadership position, which includes preventing the Australian Federal Police exchanging information which puts Australians at risk of the death sentence in overseas courts, CLA says.

CLA has joined seven other mainstream Australian liberties and rights bodies, international, national and state-based, to ask the government to commit to four key steps.

The organisations making the call are:

Civil Liberties Australia

Amnesty International

Australians Detained Abroad

Human Rights Law Centre

Human Rights Watch

NSW Council for Civil Liberties

Reprieve, and

Uniting Justice Australia.

The eight have proposed the government agrees to these four steps:

Developing a new Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade public strategy document aimed at ending the death penalty, everywhere;

Using the aid program to support civil society organisations campaigning for abolition in countries which retain the death penalty;

Joining forces with other nations to push for universal adoption of a global moratorium on the death penalty; and

Putting in place stronger legislation so the Australian Federal Police is required by law not to share information with other law enforcement agencies that would potentially result in suspected perpetrators facing the death penalty.

The Tasmanian AG has instantly rejected the CLA Australia Day call for an inquiry into the state’s legal system in 2020-2021. 'Nothing to see here, the system's perfect,’ she suggests. See CLA AUST DAY LETTER